I always thought it was silly seeing all the flat toads behind buses, with the wear and tear on tires and suspension. My intentions were to dolly our Kia but watching others at campgrounds and hearing stories we decided to trade our Ridgline in for a jeep. Neither one of our vehicles would tow flat. Jeeps seem to be the dominant toads by far so if you can't beat em join em.

I don't know about the new Jeeps if the key has to be turned on or not but I watch the guys towing the Envoy's pretty neat the way they work push a button turn the key off and put in your pocket , leaving the key in the Jeep was always a concern to me and when you forget to turn it on what a mess trying to replace 2 front tires with only 1 spare lol don't ask

GM makes models which can be flat towed you have to remove a fuse while towing on some but that is easy. I've watched Mon and Dad hook up their HHR a couple of times. It is much easier than the tow dolly. You used to see a lot Saturn cars behind RVs for that reason.

We have a tow dolly and it is a very big hassle to get my Toyoya Matrix onto that dolly. What am I missing, why do you start your car when towing 4 down?Dave

Tom & Fran's van (with automatic transmission) requires the engine to idle to keep the transmission lubricated. Other options are install a drive shaft disconnect ($$$$) or remove driveshaft (big hassle). Not sure whether a lube pump would work on his van?? (they do not work on all automatic transmissions) Jack

The issue with flat towing most automatic transmission cars that don't have a transfer box that can be put in neutral, like a Jeep, is lubricating the transmission. Three ways to get around this - disconnect the driveshaft, run an external lube pump, or run the engine of the vehicle and put the transmission in neutral. Running the engine runs the internal pumps, etc, in the transmission. It obviously uses some fuel, but with the driveshaft disconnect or the external lube pump running around a thousand bucks, you can idle away a long time to use up that much fuel.

Many manual transmission cars don't lube the output bearing or shaft while being towed. Their manual often says do not flat tow. The anecdotal evidence is that most people ignore that and have no problems. If you stop every 2 hours and run the engine with the gearbox in neutral for 5 minutes, you lube the internals of the gearbox and almost certainly will not have an issue.

I tow with a dolly for a couple of reasons. One - I can put any front wheel drive car I get on it, or I can tow my MGB with the "run it every once in a while" method described above. Getting a proper tow bar system and hook up to my car was going to cost almost as much as the tow dolly, and would have required damage to the car, and a new base plate system for any other car I needed to tow. Second - the dolly has electric brakes. I feel you need to have emergency break-away brakes regardless of the might of your tow vehicle, and such are mandatory in some places anyway, although towing a car flat is not subject to the identical rules as towing a trailer as far as brakes are concerned. A brake system for a flat-towed car is pretty expensive. Finally, I didn't want the wear of rolling the front end of the car, but that was not a justification on it's own.

I've been loading stuff in trailers and tying them down for close to 30 years, so putting a car on a dolly is actually a relief for me. It definitely is a pain if you have to back up. Once I get myself sorted I may switch to towing a car inside my trailer, but we'll see.

Doug, you don't want a tow dolly they are a pain four down is the way to go I never had a problem with damage expect when I left the steering wheel locked that cost me 2 tires . All wheel drives are the one that are hard to tow we towed the Lexus for a while it was either put it on a trailer or stop every 100 miles start the engine and run it through all the gears I didn't like the trailer it was a pain the places we went and stopping and starting the car was a pain so I bought a Jeep and never no regrets. Great thing about Jeeps a $79.00 tow bar does the job you don't need all the base plates and fold up tow bars $$$$ but the M&G supplemental brakes are nice

With the Lexus on long runs I would use Tom's method start it and let it run most 4 wheel drives are tow able the all wheel drives are not

After going thru a lot of time and money to set up a toad to pull 4-down, and subsequently pigeonholing myself into keeping the vehicle for probably way longer than we would have otherwise, due to that expense, and then borrowing a trailer last year to haul a different car that would haul more than the PU would....................................................

A trailer is the best solution for me. You can buy a trailer for the costs of completely setting up a toad correctly for 4 down, possibly even less. I can take whatever car we choose or currently have, I can back up with it hooked up, I can haul way more stuff and it is a great addition to my tool chest and is used for a great many other things. Pulls just the same as anything I ever put on that hitch.